Uncanny Avengers #16 – Review

by Rick Remender (Writer), Steve McNiven, John Dell, Jay Leisten (Artists), Laura Martin (Colorist)

The Story: Thor and Captain America bring the pain to the Apocalypse twins as the world reacts to the apparition of a celestial here to execute them all.

The Review: While Rick Remender, like every single writer there is, has his share of strengths and weaknesses in terms of plotting, there is a certain something in which he excels: action. Considering the fact that super hero stories are massively known for being action-driven more than anything, it is a nice thing to know about a specific writer. However, plot should never take a back-seat in a book, which means a certain balance must be maintained in order for any capes comic to work well. Does Remender provides what is necessary for his tale of grand proportion to continue in a way that is satisfactory?

In many ways, the writer does advance the story in ways that count, providing many excitement and upping the ante for the characters. Knowing very well that super heroes are beings that usually faces high threats and confronts situations that are far larger than them, Remender gives an emphasis on action without sacrificing much in terms of the scope of the tale. While the overall action focus heavily on Thor and Captain America, the story does allow readers to understand how big it is, involving other characters from the Marvel universe in the cataclysm that is yet to come. It is event-worthy storytelling dedicated to a single issue, which does allow for a good level of excitement and entertainment on the page.

Still, despite the fact that everything feels big, it’s really the action that sells the whole issue. The fight between Thor and Uriel is something that is decidedly fast-paced, yet not so that the impacts of their words and blows comes off as secondary in importance. It’s the son of Archangel against the god of thunder and those two powerful beings duke it out in a most satisfactory way. With snippets of characterization thrown in for good measure, it doesn’t simply devolve to mindless fisticuff anywhere in the issue, with the motivations being inserted for good measures in the dialogue. Let’s just say that, in a way, the dialogue of Thor does get to the point rather quickly.

While the issue is mostly dedicated to Thor and Uriel, there are still scenes given to Captain America and Wasp, with some good developments done by these characters. While not everything they do or participate in tend to result in payoff straight away, their scenes do add to the general rising of tension, building up to the general whole that is about to blow up in the coming issues. The conflict escalate and their part in the action does not detract from the rather amazing events on display here.

Uncanny Avengers #15 – Review

by Rick Remender (Writer), Steve McNiven, John Dell, Dexter Vines, Jay Leisten (Artists), Laura Martin (Colorist)

The Story: As Wasp fights the revived Sentry, the plan of the Apocalypse twins takes a rather sinister turn.

The Review: With the way the previous issue went down, I suppose it’s fair to assume that Rick Remender is not kidding around with this storyline. While I did enjoy this series in a general way, there was always something holding it back a bit. Either it was too much buildup for not enough payoff or the fact that the cast was so divided it provided for too many subplots at the same time, the book had its problems. However, with the arrival of Steve McNiven and the rather explosive last issue, does Remender actually succeed in upping the ante for this title?

It finally seems that yes, Remender actually did end up giving the gravitas and the high energy this title needed in some of its previous issues. Due to many elements handled very well, he is able to give the fans that were following the book quite a lot of great moments as he continues to make the conflict bigger with each issues.

Where he goes right, in a way, is in how he switch the focus on other characters instead of those that were in the conflict where those who died were situated. Putting Captain America, Wasp and Thor on the spotlight, he is able to not only rotate the focus a bit more on some characters that did not receive that much focus to begin with, but get in their head as well. We get to know how Captain America perceives this team and how he thinks he failed them, how Wasp sees her super heroic side and how some characters reacts to some unseemly news. It seems a bit of a waste to put characters like Sunfire, Havok and Wolverine on the side, yet he does quite a lot with this trio of characters in order to advance his plot.

Uncanny Avengers #13 – Review

by Rick Remender (Writer), Daniel Acuña (Artist/Colorist)

The Story: The members of the Unity squad are trying in their own way to solve the problems posed by the Apocalypse Twins. Meanwhile, the twins are themselves plotting for the fulfilment of their plan.

The Review: Even though I rather like the creative team, the themes and most of the characters featured in this series, something didn’t seem to click for me with Uncanny Avengers. This lead to me being rather harsh (though fair) in my review of the previous issue of this series, which seemed to represent many of the problems I had with the series to begin with, putting them to the forefront in a way that lead to an unsatisfying read for me. I, however, believe in the fact that not all issues in a series can be great, that missteps can be made. Was the previous issue simply a fluke or would this issue provide another assessment of a lot of the problem I had with the series so far?

In a lot of ways, this issue corrects a lot of what annoyed me a bit with this series as it tweaks some elements and move at a faster rate with its many plot points and characters. It’s not a complete reversal in terms of quality, with some of the problems I have still being present, yet it is definitely a step in the right direction, with all things considered.

Uncanny Avengers #12 – Review

by Rick Remender (Writer), Salvador Larroca (Artist), Frank Martin (Colorist)

The Story: As Havok and the others try to infiltrate the lair of the Apocalypse Twins, Wanda and Simon needs to make a decision concerning the future relations between humans and mutants.

The Review: We all have an author or an artist that we’ll follow wherever he goes. As the careers of those in the industry continues, they may produce a piece of work that gathers them fans for whatever they may do next, which is how the whole thing functions. When Rick Remender made his excellent run on Uncanny X-Force and the superb independent series Fear Agent, it would be safe to say that he gathered a particularly strong following. I can definitely say that I was particularly pleased with those two runs, as I had decided that I’d give a shot to a lot of things he would write from now on.

It’s a bit sad to say, but considering this series, I am getting a bit uncertain about the wisdom behind my choice, as Uncanny Avengers never did meet the same quality level that some of his previous work had once reached (although there are some moments where it did came close to that level), with this issues providing plenty of examples as to why. While it clearly isn’t supposed to be the same type of book that Remender did previously at Marvel, there are simply some elements that he isn’t handling in the best of ways.

One of the best example is the main dilemma that fuel the series itself, the human vs. mutant debate. While the main plot do tend to gravitate toward a new take on the whole thing, bringing along Kang, Red Skull and other elements in order to make things more interesting, it seems that Remender is spinning its wheels a bit before actually moving things into place. While the debate and the arguments that are said by the characters are pretty faithful to the characters speaking them, most of them either are ill-placed in the story or slows it down to a crawl as the other elements suffers because of it.

Uncanny Avengers #11 – Review

Rick Remender (Writer), Daniel Acuña (Artist, Colorist)

The Story: Quite a lot of the members of the Avengers unity squad gets explanation about what is happening and what might just happen if things continue the way they are.

The Review: Exposition is always useful. It can bring people up to speed on the status of certain events or characters quickly, reinstate the gravity of a situation and throw new concepts to the readers to appreciate. It’s the perfect tool to bring in new readers to make sure they won’t be lost and to make sure that the regular reader don’t forget the important information in the wait between each issues.

However, it is also something that can severely hinder an issue if it indulge too much in it, which this issue unfortunately does. There are a good number of things to explain, of course, as the connection between some of the horsemen and what made it so has to be explained and certainly put on spotlight for it to be effective, yet there is simply not a lot going on in this issue because of the heavy emphasis on the dialogue and exposition.

It’s not an issue-breaking problem, fortunately, as there are some good concepts brought up front which does advance some of the themes of this series forward, however slightly it does. The scene with Scarlet Witch and the Apocalypse twins does bring some interesting ideas as it mixes some of the older ones like Magneto’s brotherhood of evil and Archangel to the newer ones like what Red Skull is trying to do and what he might achieve if he succeeds. It creates an ominous conflict that plays well with the ambiguous antagonism of the Apocalypse twins, who seems to possess larger plans and a certain nobility despite their methods. It does make those characters a bit more interesting as villains.

Uncanny Avengers #9 – Review

By: Rick Remender (Writer) Daniel Acuña (Artist/Colorist)

The Story: The Apocalypse twin tries to plan for what they want to make happen to the world as the Avengers deals with dissension in their ranks.

The Review: Rick Remender is not a man that is afraid to go big. As he tried and succeeded in creating a big stories with lasting effect with his memorable run on Uncanny X-Force, he tries to go even bigger with this run as he incorporate many elements from the Marvel universe, including some from his own tenure on his previous title. However, does he succeed in this attempt? Is he able to give us something bigger?

In ways, the short time he had on this title seems to indicate that he might just be able to do that, as he almost effortlessly incorporates his own ideas into the larger Marvel universe without making them too weird or even out of place amongst the many strange things that are included in this superhero universe. It is, after all, a book that tries to connect the mutant world of the X-Men with the rest of the Marvel imprint. Now, I am no expert on the X-Men, but from what I read, I had always perceived the mutants characters to be almost in a little universe of their own, as they had their own threats, their own saviors, their own events and their own spinoffs, with most of them completely unrelated to what was happening in the rest of the universe they were supposed to be sharing. It seemed to me that those characters were almost better off being literally given their own universe after all, yet Remender makes for a really good case in the more open connection he gives here.